Subject:      Bad Therapy:  Review by the Happy Guy
From:         gaffney@iconn.net (Sean Gaffney)
Date:         1996/12/30
Message-Id:   <5a8sjm$c8q@news.iconn.net>
Organization: i-Conn
Newsgroups:   rec.arts.drwho

Ah, the end of the year, and I've finally finished Bad Therapy...
a very interesting book.

SPOILERS!!! (for SVAS also, although everyone knows by now)

I found it interesting, considering the plot of Bad Therapy, how much
this book depended on So Vile a Sin.  This is the emotional aftermath
of that book, dealing with the Doctor and Chris' feelings of grief and
loss following the death of Roz.  Therefore, reading it before SVAS is
very much like effect before cause.  The deep emotion hasn't hit me yet,
and it won't till April.  Ah, well.

Despite that, Bad Therapy is an excellent book, with several intriguing
viewpoints.  Another book that, although they might say otherwise,
wouldn't have gotten past Submission 1 if it were a BBCNA.

Plot:  Nicely tying in with SVAS, and the 6th Doctor story "Mindwarp",
the plot *is* about emotion, about Moriah creating the Toys through
guilt, and the Doctor forced to confront his own tormented feelings for
both Roz and Peri.  Roz is dead, but her presence permeates the book,
especially in the relationship between Chris and Patsy.  A couple of
odd things, maybe others could answer them.  How did Moriah live for
thousands of years, anyway?  And was the balck cab really necessary,
or was it just a Hammer Horror touch.  I mean, you could just have
abducted them normally.

The Doctor:  Downbeat and mortal, this is a Doctor who has lost the
battle one too many times.  The best line of the book is when he asks
Peri why he is the only one who cares if an entire species survives.
Too often the Doctor puts the needs of the many in front of the needs
of the few, and here he begins to wonder why *everyone* questions this.
This Doctor, more human than we've ever seen him and yet still an alien,
is the beginning of the transition to Paul McGann.

Chris:  Chris has always been outward in all his feelings, and this
comes to a head in his bonding with Patsy, and you wonder at the end
whether he did create her through his grief.  Better written than most
authors write Chris, but again, a lot depends on SVAS.

Gilliam:  Oh, boy, *another* alternate ending of the Peri story.  Still,
if you were to choose between this and Peri as Yrcanos' manager in
wrestling matches, I'd go with this one.  Her pain doesn't just go
away, and it is only the knowledge that this Doctor is so different
from the one she knew that enables her to begin to forgive him.  I would
have liked to see a resolution with Yrcanos, though.

Others:  Tilda, Jack, and Patsy shine, but the others are too vague to
be memorable.  Moriah is an average dolally villain.

Style:  Very similar to Human Nature, with its feelings right on the
surface, and the chance of a brief respite being dashed.  Still, I didn't
notice any grevious problems with the writing.

Overall:  Still incomplete till April and SVAS, but eminently readable in
its own right, Bad Therapy is a very nice book to read at the holiday
season, when emotions tend to roil anyway.

8/10.

Next:  Yaaay, crosstime.  Lance works over the Fifth Doctor in Cold Fusion.

--Sean Gaffney
--and the cover looked wrong.  Blank means *blank*, not vague.